Just A Word
by Saucie
Summary: She says You-Know-Who's name now. He hates it. (Ron's PoV)


_**Just A Word.**_

* * *

_It was the first time she had ever said Voldemort's name, and it was this, more than anything else, that calmed Harry.  
-- _Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 15, _The Hogwarts High Inquisitor._

* * *

It wasn't so much shock, he decided later. It wasn't surprise at the fact that she had dared to say it, or horror at the word itself. Harry said it all the time. Harry had always said it, ever since the very first day.

But then that was Harry. The-Boy-Who-Lived, the hero, the star. He was allowed to say it. It was different for him.

Truth is, he'd been … hurt. He'd heard Harry shouting away, voice rising and rising, and he'd interrupted and he'd looked to Hermione for help – because he always did that, in every class, in every situation, glanced to her for a hint, for help, for a way out – and she'd … she'd said it.

Just like that.

And he'd gasped, instinctively, because that's what you did when you heard 'Voldemort' echoing in your ears, you sucked in a breath and waited for lightning to strike you down, and he'd thought …

He thought he'd lost her.

Oh, he didn't think it quite like that. He'd just looked at the tortured look in Harry's eyes disappearing and his breath coming hard, and he looked at Hermione, face pale and eyes timid, and her voice stuttering over the 'v', and he'd been glad, underneath the fear that came so naturally. He'd been glad that she could make Harry stop, that _anyone_ could make him stop … because he just didn't work on the same wavelength as Harry anymore. Not the way he – they – used to.

Only sometimes … when _Harry_ was in the mood …

But he'd been glad, then. Almost. Sort of. It was only later, when he lay upstairs in his bed, waiting for Harry to make his way upstairs, that he realised the sick feeling in his chest wasn't because Harry had had another shouting fit.

Thing was, it didn't sound any different when she said it. Harry said it the same way, so did Dumbledore, Sirius – the same inflections, the same stress on syllables. It was still just the same name.

Except it wasn't. Never was.

(_fear of a name only increases fear of the thing itself_)

Harry'd tried, in the beginning, to make him say it. But he hadn't, and Harry hadn't pressed further – not much, anyway – just said it all the time in this casual way that made it infinitely clear that this was the better, the _braver_ thing to do.

(_When are you going to start using his name? Sirius and Lupin do.) _

Ron agreed with that. Somewhat. It probably was braver.

Except Harry hadn't grown up in a house where that name was sacrilege.

(_only where the word _magic_ was sacrilege_)

He didn't understand a world where You-Know-Who was everything you were ever scared of, everything you ever had nightmares about

(_still sleeping with your teddy bear, Ronniekins?_)

everything you were ever told not to say. Where mention of You-Know-Who was the only thing that could make your mother cry, and he thought that his mother crying was the scariest thing in the world.

For Harry, he thought – he'd decided this long ago, back in third year, when they weren't really speaking to Hermione and he was upset about Crookshanks – You-Know-Who was somebody real, someone who

(_HE KILLED MY MUM AND DAD!_)

hated him, someone who was personal for Harry the way he would never be for Ron. For Harry, he had form, shape … a name. For Ron, he was just … You-Know-Who.

And for Hermione too, he'd thought, before.

He knew that Hermione could never be as scared of the name as he was, not really, not the same way. It wasn't imprinted into her brain, the horror and bloodshed and _evil_ that came with it, the way it changed an atmosphere in a room, the way it cast a pall over everything around it. But he'd thought she understood, at least, what it meant, why it wasn't

(_ever, don't ever say it, ever_)

said casually in a conversation, why it was something the wizard community avoided so completely, why _he_ avoided it, shirked from it.

Except she'd said it.

She hadn't said it easily, but that didn't matter. She hadn't got it out in one smooth go, but that didn't matter either. He could see her mouth moving, remembered the dread he'd felt as she stuttered and stumbled over her words …

(_we need to know what it's r-really like … facing him … _)

For a second he'd thought she would just stop there, just not go on, but Harry still had that look in his eye, like the time earlier that year when he'd arrived at Grimmauld Place for the first time and started screaming at them, and

( … _facing V-Voldemort._)

she'd said it.

Just like that.

And Harry had stopped.

And Ron had gasped.

And that had been it.

(_Coming?_)

(_Yeah. In … in a minute. I'll just clear this up._)

He thought he'd lost her. To – to that world of heroes and brave people and the world he wished and tried and did his best to live up to, because of his mother and Harry and his dad and Hermione and Fred and George and Ginny –

(_if you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!_)

He did his best – _he didn't want to die_ – and he did more than that, but this … she'd said it. She'd – like Harry could say it. Like Dumbledore. She was one of them now.

He didn't think he ever would be.

And he tried, didn't he?

(_There. Go on. Laugh._)

So many things he was willing to do, for Harry, for her, for _them_ … he could list them all, like Harry listed everything he'd ever done when he was especially angry (except he was apologetic then, not that he ever said it) … and he had to lose her to this.

He'd been disappointed in her. For taking the step, for giving in to Harry. For saying the name. And that was stupid, because she'd _fought it_, not given in … but – it had happened. It was one of the things they had, her and him, that put them together, that made them – normal, he liked to think – and now it was gone.

And he'd enjoyed it, being Ron and Hermione for a while now that it wasn't Harry and Ron anymore, as much as it used to be …

It didn't stop, either. It wasn't a one-time thing, she didn't simply say it and go back to saying You-Know-Who like _he_ did. No. She said it at the D.A. meetings, in the library, everywhere, and he was haunted by it, haunted by that name in her voice, everywhere, like Fred and George and their constant taunts

(_Little Ronnie, a prefect!_)

about everything about him in general. And he had to take it from her now, too, You-Know-Who's name, the one thing he couldn't answer back in kind, the one insult he couldn't rebound because he wasn't brave enough …

( _– oh, don't be pathetic, Ron – _)

Oh, he was scared to death of the name, there was no doubt about that. He was just never going to _say_ that to them. To say, in as many words, that he. just. couldn't.

Because they were braver than him. Both of them.

He'd always thought Harry was. It was just one of those things. But Hermione too …

It was just a word for her, now. Just any other _stupid_ word.

And he liked her, damn it. He didn't want – he didn't want to be angry at her, for letting him down, for doing this, for

( _– for heaven's _sake_, Ron – _)

forcing him to accept this about her like he accepted it about Harry. He accepted that she was so much smarter than they were, and that was fine. He accepted that Harry was brilliant at Quidditch – well, that was fine too. He accepted that Harry was famous (accepted that now, had to, there was nothing else he could do, because he liked Harry too even though he just. couldn't. take. it. anymore.) and that he would always be the youngest Weasley brother with no identity of his own.

(_There. Go on. Laugh._)

He didn't want it to be that way with her too.

But she always said it now, and he could gasp and go pale all he liked, she wasn't going to stop. And wasn't that half of what he liked about her? That she never ever backed down from anything? That she always answered him back, that she never –

But she didn't _get it_.

(_Listen, Ronnie, you have to understand this. It's always You-Know-Who, all right? Always. Don't forget that. You don't want bad things to happen, do you? It's always You-Know-Who._)

No one had told her that. No one had told Harry that.

It wasn't their fault, he tried to tell himself. But it didn't work.

Because it wasn't his fault either, was it?

She'd never had occasion to use it with him in private, yet, even though they were forced to spend a lot more time together this year than they had before. Prefect duties, Harry and his love of detention … but she hadn't once said the name in front of him, all alone. He wondered if she thought he couldn't handle it.

He wondered if she was right.

But he just _couldn't_

( – _stop _whimpering_, Ron – _)

say it.

He didn't think this all the time, of course. Only sometimes, like the night she'd said it, and now, as Harry sat downstairs finishing his homework and Neville snored loudly a couple of beds away. He didn't like thinking – it made him move on to things like Percy

(_Bighead Boy_)

and his mother, and Quidditch, which he never looked forward to anymore, and … and this thing that Hermione had started, now, that he couldn't do anything about. And Harry. And how Harry had changed and how he couldn't do anything about it because he didn't want to mess up whatever they had by telling Harry not to be a stupid git sometimes.

He hated thinking. It made him feel all sorts of things at once, and he couldn't take that. Didn't want to.

He just wanted to get her voice out of his head, saying the name, again and again, until he wanted to scream to her that it wasn't safe, that _bad, bad things_ would happen if she kept doing it, and he didn't want her swallowed by spiders or struck by lightning or crushed by a curse …

He didn't want to think that it stood there between them, the fact that she could say the name now and that he couldn't. He wished he could, wished that he could _choose_ not to say it, but he knew. He knew that he. just. couldn't.

They didn't get it. None of them _got_ it. They just thought he was a coward for not being able to say it, for not being able to control his reaction when he heard it, they didn't understand – they hadn't heard it all their lives like he had –

God, she said it all the time now. He hated it.

It was always, always there, proof of the fact that _he_ couldn't handle it, _he_ couldn't say it, that he was the _only one left_ who –

And he didn't want to hate her. Couldn't.

Couldn't say the name either. Just one more stupid thing he couldn't do.

( … _scared of _spiders_, Ron? Are you joking?_)

(_ … Weasley is our King! …_)

(_ – stop _whimpering_, Ron – _)

(_ … Percy slammed the door in her face …_)

( … _He always lets the Quaffle in!_ …)

( – _don't be pathetic, Ron – _)

(_ – stop _whimpering, Ron – )

He just wishes that he could

(_ – stop _whimper – )

make her

( – _STOP_ – )

stop.

* * *

A/N: Otherwise, he thinks he might explode. 


End file.
